Just as bad cases make bad laws,
so can celebrity cases reinforce old myths. The biggest myth the O.J. Simpson
case is likely to reinforce is the myth that domestic violence is a one
way street (male-to-female), and its corollary, that male violence
against women is an outgrowth of masculinity.

When I began seven years of research into these issues in preparation for
"The Myth of Male Power", I began with these two assumptions
since I had been the only man in the United States to have been elected three
times to the Board of Directors of the National Organization of Women in New
York City, and these assumptions went unquestioned in feminist circles.

My first finding - - that in the U.S. and Canada more than 90% of the domestic violence
reports to the police were by women, not men - seemed to confirm these
assumptions. But, then the picture became more complex.

About a dozen studies in the U.S. and Canada asked BOTH sexes how often they hit
each other, all of them found that women hit men either more frequently or about
as often as the reverse.

Two of the main studies - - by Suzanne Steinmetz, Murray Straus and Richard
Gelles - - assumed men hit women more severely, so they divided domestic violence
into seven different levels of severity. They were surprised to discover that,
overall, the more severe levels of violence were conducted more by women
against men.

A caveat, though. Men hitting women did more damage than the reverse. However,
this caveat carried its own caveat: it was exactly because men's hits hurt more
that women resorted to more severe methods (i.e. tossing boiling water over her
husband or swinging a frying pan into his face). These findings were supported
by the Census Bureau's own survey:

As early as 1977, the U.S. Census Bureau conducted the National Crime Survey,
surveying 60,000 households every six months for three and one half years. They
found women use weapons against men 82% of the time; men use weapons against
women 25% of the time. Overall, they found that even the women acknowledged they
hit men more than men hit women.

The key issue, though, is who initiates this cycle of violence.
Steinmetz, Strauss and Gelles found to their initial surprise that women are
more likely to be the first initiators. Why? In part,the belief that men can
take it - - they can therefore be a punching bag and not be expected to hit
back.

I was still a bit incredulous. I asked thousands of men and women in my
workshops to count all the relationships in which they had hit their partner
before their partner had ever it them. and vice versa. About 60% of the women
acknowledged they had more often been the first to strike a blow: among the men,
about 90% felt their female partner had been the first to strike a blow.

I still felt violence was an out growth of masculinity. I was half
right. Men are responsible for most of the violence which occurs outside
the home. However, when 54% of women in lesbian relationships acknowledge violence
in their current relationship, vs. only 11% of heterosexual couples reporting violence,
I realized that domestic violence is not an outgrowth of male
biology.

Why do we vigorously denounce domestic violence against women and not
even know about domestic violence against men?

Women Abuse Men: It's More Widespread Than People Think

Excerpt from Special supplement to The Washington Post, December 28, 1993 By
Armin A. Brott. M.D.

"Despite all the evidence about female-on-male violence, many
groups actively try to suppress coverage of the issue. Steinmetz received verbal
threats and anonymous phone calls from radical women's groups threatening to
harm her children after she published "The Battered Husband Syndrome"
in 1978. She says she finds it ironic that the same people who claim that women-
initiated violence is purely self defense are so quick to threaten violence
against people who do nothing more than publish a scientific study.

"While a discussion of same-sex harassment occasioned expressions of fear
about inciting homophobia, there were no such concerns about promoting
"hetero phobia" -- which is defined as antagonism toward men and
heterosexuality. Yet such an animus is behind much of the recent effort to stamp
out sexual harassment."

1 in 27000 men (in Canada) are murder victims whereas only 1 in 67,000 women are
murder victims. The source of these1992 figures is StatsCan

Men are also victims of prostate cancer at twice the rate that women are of
breast cancer.

Children are killed maimed and abused by their mothers at many times the rates
that men abuse or hurt children.

Women who kill men stand little chance of being convicted and less chance of
serving any full term imposed. Men get 25 years to life as the norm. Women get
10 years or less for murder usually because they claim abuse.

Who's the culprit? Who's the victim? What's the solution?
"It ain't what ya don't know that hurts ya.
What really puts a hurtin' on ya is what ya
knows for sure, that just ain't so."
Uncle Remus

A Special Report by: Revs. Sam and Bunny Sewell,
Co-Directors of the Best Self Clinic
with a huge thanks to the many people who helped compile the data.

Science,
Politics, and Domestic Violence
Why This Report Was Sent To You

We are sending this report to the media, and those persons and agencies who deal
with domestic violence, in the hope that we can correct a serious
misunderstanding about this very important issue.

We want to make it clear that we have been working to end domestic violence for
over a decade. One of us is an original incorporator of our local abuse shelter.
We were members of the "Century Club"; those who contribute over $100
annually to the local women's shelter. We have sponsored benefit events for our
local abuse shelter. Since we began publishing this report the local women's
shelter has returned our contributions. Much of the women's shelter movement is
seriously misinformed about the causes and scope of the domestic violence
problem. We were also seriously misinformed.

This misunderstanding of the domestic violence issue is so pervasive that city
and county governments, the courts, law enforcement, prosecutor's offices,
mental health clinics, and other tax supported agencies are now funding programs
based on feminist propaganda rather than responsible scientific studies. These
scientific studies reveal a startlingly different picture of the problem. The
following is a summary of domestic violence research done by well established
social scientists. Please, help get this important research on the subject of
domestic violence to the public.

The Feminist View of Domestic
Violence Vs Scientific Studies

One of the widely believed myths of our society is that domestic violence is
something men do to women. Solid scientific research reveals that domestic
violence is something women do to men more frequently than men do it to women.
While it is true that men account for most violence outside the home, women
instigate most domestic violence and they assault men more frequently and more
severely.

The Family Research Laboratory at the University of New Hampshire, under grants
from the National Institute of Mental Health, has released the last of three
national studies on domestic violence. The first two studies (1975 and 1985)
revealed results similar to the latest study. The original national survey was
done in 1975. Several research papers were published as a result of it. In 1980
the study results were made available to the general public in a book called,
Behind Closed Doors: Violence In The American Family (Anchor Press, Garden City,
NY). In 1985 Straus and Gelles completed and published a follow up study, which
was published in Journal Of Marriage and the Family.. In 1992 a third follow up
study was completed by Murray A. Straus and Glenda Kaufman Kantor. The study was
presented at 13th World Congress of Sociology.

Comparative data for the three national studies as rate per 1,000 couples: MINOR
VIOLENT ACTS: SEVERE VIOLENT ACTS:

*Table prepared using data from "Change In Spouse Assault Rates From 1975
to 1992: A Comparison of Three National Surveys In The United States", by
Murray A. Straus and Glenda Kaufman Kantor.

Thousands of couples were involved in these studies. The conclusions are based
on more than 20 years of research. For the average of reports by both males and
females: Husband on wife severe assault occurred at a rate of 2.0%, whereas wife
on husband severe assault occurred at a rate of 4.6%. and Husband on wife minor
assault occurred at a rate of 9.9%, whereas wife on husband assault occurred at
a rate of 9.5%.

The average results of all three studies in the "severe assault"
category, are reported below: Wives report they have been severely assaulted by
husband
22 per 1000

Wives report they have severely assaulted husband
59 per 1000

Husbands report they have been severely assaulted by wives
32 per 1000

Husbands report they have severely assaulted wives
18 per 1000

Husbands & wives both report wife has been assaulted
20 per 1000

Husbands & wives both report husband has been assaulted
44 per 1000

There are dozens of other studies that reveal similar findings. For instance:
women are three times more likely than men to use weapons in domestic violence.
Women initiate most incidents of domestic violence. Women commit most child
abuse and most elder abuse. Women hit their male children more frequently and
more severely that they hit their female children. Women commit most child
murders and 64% of their victims are male children. When women murder adults the
majority of their victims are men. Women commit 50% of spousal murders. Eighty
two percent of all people have their first experience of violence at the hands
of a women.

Law Enforcement Statistics Do
Not Define The Problem.

There is much confusion about whom to believe in the debate about domestic
violence. On one side we have women's shelter advocates and feminists who rely
on law enforcement statistics. On the other side we have social scientists who
rely on scientifically structured studies. Unfortunately, the results of
scientific studies do not receive media attention. America's press is seemingly
more interested in political correctness than scientific accuracy. Therefore,
the public perception, and the perception of many well intentioned domestic
violence activists, is radically skewed away from the more balanced perception
of social scientists.

Many abuse shelter personnel are unaware of the scientific studies even though
they claim to be "domestic violence experts" and often conduct
"training" sessions for government agencies. How could someone be an
expert without awareness of the scientific studies in their field? There are
towns and cities in our country where the entire legal establishment; law
enforcement, family law attorneys, and judges are making decisions about
domestic violence based on political propaganda rather than well established
research.

The typical response of the abuse shelter feminists upon first hearing the
results of the scientific studies is to "shoot the messenger". You can
almost hear their minds snap closed. There is an almost cult like "party
line" among victim advocates. Much of the belief system of their
"cult" has no scientific or rational basis. On the other hand, some
abuse shelter personnel have not accepted the feminist "party line".
They are eager to have accurate information upon which to plan and implement
rational programs for prevention, intervention, and treatment for abusers and
their victims. Are the domestic violence "experts" in your community
aware of the scientific studies? What is happening at the abuse shelter in your
community?

Domestic Violence in Other
Countries

We think it is important to note that there have been the same kind of studies
done in many countries. There is cross cultural verification that women are more
violent than men in domestic settings. When behavior has cross cultural
verification it means that it is part of human nature rather than a result of
cultural conditioning. Females are most often the perpetrators in domestic
violence in all cultures that have been studied so far. That leads many
professionals to conclude that there is something biological about violent
females in family situations. Researchers are now exploring the role of the
"territorial imperative" as a factor in women's violence against men.
Women see the home as their territory. Like many other species on the planet, we
humans will ignore size difference when we experience conflict on our own
territory. So, the scientific results that reveal the violence of American women
are not unique to our culture, and do not indicate a special pathology among
American women. World wide, women are more violent than men in domestic
settings.

One of the leading researchers in this field is Susan Steinmetz, Ph.D. Here is
the list of studies of other cultures Steinmetz has done: A
cross-cultural comparison of marital abuse. Journal of Sociology, and Social
Welfare, 8, 404-414. Married couples from 9 different cultures. .1: Finland,
n=44; .2:Puerto Rico, n=82; .3:British Honduras(all), n=231; .4:B.H., Spanish
speaking, n=103; .5:B.H., Creole, n=79; .6:B.H., carib, n=37; .7:USA,
n=94;.8:Canada, n=52; .9:Israel(all), n=127; .10:Israel Kibbutz,
n=63;.11:Israel, city, n=64.

Below is a summary of the most recent and significant studies we could find
about domestic violence in Canada. There were two waves of data collection. The
first was done in 1990 the second was finished in 1992. This study was done by
"Ms." Reena Sommer, Ph.D. a research associate with the Manitoba
Centre for Health Policy and Evaluation. We emphasize the "Ms" to call
attention to the fact that scientific studies of DV include female social
scientists. It has been argued that scientific studies contain a gender bias
against women, as if all scientists are male. In this field many of the leading
experts are women.

Female vs. male perpetrated
violence as a percentage of all respondents:
Minor Violence
% of females % of males

Another survey of couples in
Canada found that the rate of severe husband-to-wife violence was 4.8%, while
severe wife-to-husband violence was 10%. Brinkerhoff & Lupri, Canadian
Journal of Sociology, (1989)

The Propaganda Problem and the
Scientific Solution
Abuse shelter advocates and feminists have severely distorted the DV picture
and deliberately produce fraudulent statistics and dis-information. Even when
they quote well grounded statistics, they misuse the information. Here is an
example: One of the favorite statistics quoted by abuse shelter advocates is
that a women is the victim of domestic violence every 15 seconds. This statistic
is deduced from a well conducted piece of research which was published in the
Journal of Marriage and Family, a respected professional journal for marriage
and family therapists. The Abuse Shelter advocates arrived at this figure by
using one of the conclusions of the study, i.e.; 1.8 million women suffer an
assault from a husband or boyfriend per year. What abuse shelter advocates
always ignore is another finding of the same study, i.e.; 2 million men are
assaulted by a wife or girl friend per year, which translates as, a man is the
victim of domestic violence every 14 seconds. This is typical of the wide spread
deception practiced by abuse shelter advocates. America's press establishment is
a party to this deception and shares the blame for exacerbating the DV problem
by perpetuating a false diagnosis.

Acknowledging that women are
abusers leads to better solutions.
Women usually initiate domestic violence episodes (they hit first), and
women hit more frequently, as well as using weapons three times more often then
men. This combination of violent acts means that the efforts of finding
solutions to the domestic violence problem need to focus on female perpetrators.
We need to recognize that women are violent, and we need nationwide educational
programs that emphasize the women's role as perpetrators. Other studies show
that men are becoming less violent at the same time that women are becoming more
violent. Educating men seems to be working. Educating women to be less violent
should now be the main thrust of public education programs.

Any domestic violence program which accepts the "male abuser - female
victim" paradigm is based on a false premise. These kind of domestic
violence programs actually perpetuate the problem of domestic abuse and do not
deserve to be supported by private citizens or government agencies. Many
government agencies, and legitimate charities, have been funding a feminist
political cause, rather than funding rational, solution focused, domestic
violence prevention programs. What kind of domestic violence prevention program
do you have in your community? Does your local program encourage the healing of
families, or do they take the "divorce" approach? Does the domestic
violence prevention program in your community devote as much attention to
violent females, as it does to violent males? If not, why not?

Let us quote from a book on the subject by McNeely, R.L.. and
Robinson-Simpson, G. "The Truth about Domestic Violence: A Falsely Framed
Issue" : "Yet, while repeated studies consistently show that men are
victims of domestic violence at least as often as are women, both the lay public
and many professionals regard a finding of no sex difference in rates of
physical aggression among intimates as surprising, if not unreliable, the
stereotype being that men are aggressive and women are exclusively
victims." The feminist view of domestic violence is part of the problem.
The media boycott of news about the scientific studies is part of the problem.
The scientific view gives us hope for solution. Please do your part to share
this very important information with your community.

Below, are some exceptions to
the usual media silence on science based stories about DV.

USA Today June 29, 1994

Spouse Abuse a Two-Way
Street
By Warren Farrell, Ph.D.

Just as bad cases make bad laws, so can celebrity cases reinforce old myths. The
biggest myth the O.J. Simpson case is likely to reinforce is the myth that
domestic violence is a one way street (male-to-female), and its corollary, that
male violence against women is an outgrowth of masculinity.

When I began seven years of research into these issues in preparation for
"The Myth of Male Power", I began with these two assumptions since I
had been the only man in the United States to have been elected three times to
the Board of Directors of the National Organization of Women in New York City,
and these assumptions went unquestioned in feminist circles.

My first finding - - that in the U.S. and Canada more than 90% of the domestic
violence reports to the police were by women, not men - seemed to confirm these
assumptions. But, then the picture became more complex.

About a dozen studies in the U.S. and Canada asked BOTH sexes how often they hit
each other, all of them found that women hit men either more frequently or about
as often as the reverse.

Two of the main studies - - by Suzanne Steinmetz, Murray Straus and Richard
Gelles - - assumed men hit women more severely, so they divided domestic
violence into seven different levels of severity. They were surprised to
discover that, overall, the more severe levels of violence were conducted more
by women against men.

A caveat, though. Men hitting women did more damage than the reverse. However,
this caveat carried its own caveat: it was exactly because men's hits hurt more
that women resorted to more severe methods (i.e. tossing boiling water over her
husband or swinging a frying pan into his face). These findings were supported
by the Census Bureau's own survey:

As early as 1977, the U.S. Census Bureau conducted the National Crime Survey,
surveying 60,000 households every six months for three and one half years. They
found women use weapons against men 82% of the time; men use weapons against
women 25% of the time. Overall, they found that even the women acknowledged they
hit men more than men hit women.

The key issue, though, is who initiates this cycle of violence. Steinmetz,
Strauss and Gelles found to their initial surprise that women are more likely to
be the first initiators. Why? In part,the belief that men can take it - - they
can therefore be a punching bag and not be expected to hit back.

I was still a bit incredulous. I asked thousands of men and women in my
workshops to count all the relationships in which they had hit their partner
before their partner had ever it them and vice versa. About 60% of the women
acknowledged they had more often been the first to strike a blow: among the men,
about 90% felt their female partner had been the first to strike a blow.

I still felt violence was an out growth of masculinity. I was half right. Men
are responsible for most of the violence which occurs outside the home. However,
when 54% of women in lesbian relationships acknowledge violence in their current
relationship, vs. only 11% of heterosexual couples reporting violence, I
realized that domestic violence is not an outgrowth of male biology.

Why do we vigorously denounce domestic violence against women and not even know
about domestic violence against men?

Excerpt from Special supplement to The Washington Post,
December 28, 1993
By Armin A. Brott. M.D.

"Despite all the evidence about female-on-male violence, many groups
actively try to suppress coverage of the issue. Steinmetz received verbal
threats and anonymous phone calls from radical women's groups threatening to
harm her children after she published "The Battered Husband Syndrome"
in 1978. She says she finds it ironic that the same people who claim that women-
initiated violence is purely self defense are so quick to threaten violence
against people who do nothing more than publish a scientific study.

Steinmetz's story is not unique. Ten years after that study, R.L. McNeely, a
professor at the School of Social Welfare at the University of Wisconsin, and
Gloria Robinson-Simpson published "The Truth About Domestic Violence: A
Falsely Framed Issue." The article examined various studies on domestic
violence and concluded that society must recognize that men are victims "or
we will be addressing only part of the phenomenon."

Shortly thereafter, McNeely received letters from a Pennsylvania women's
organization threatening to use its influence in Washington to pull his research
funding. Robinson-Simpson,who uncovered some of the most important data, largely
was left alone. According to McNeely, "she, a young assistant professor,
was assumed to have been 'duped" by the senior male professor." (end
quote)

Murray A. Straus, a sociologist and co-director for the Family Research
Laboratory at the University of New Hampshire, blames "women in the
battered [women's] shelter movement" for denying that women physically
abuse husbands, ex-husbands and boyfriends, or playing down such abuse.
"There's this fiction in the shelter movement that in all cases, it's him,
not her" who's responsible for domestic assaults", Mr. Straus said in
a recent interview.

Mr. Straus said at least 30 studies of domestic violence - including some he 's
conducted - have shown both sexes to be equally culpable. But he said some of
the research, such as a recent Canadian national survey, "left out data on
women abusing men ... because it's politically embarrassing." Women and men
"are almost identical" in terms of the frequency of attacks such as
slapping, shoving, and kicking, Mr. Straus said.

Using information on married couples obtained from 2,994 women in the 1985
National Family Violence Survey, Mr. Straus said he found a rate for assaults by
wives of 124 per 1,000 couples, compared with 122 per 1,000 for assaults by
husbands.

The rate of minor assaults by wives was 78 per 1,000 couples, and the rate of
minor assaults by husbands was 72 per 1,000, he said. For the category of severe
assaults, he said, the rate was 46 per 1,000 couples for assaults by wives and
50 per 1,000 for assaults by husbands. "Neither difference is statistically
different,"* Mr. Straus wrote in the journal Issues in Definition and
Measurement. "As these rates are based exclusively on information provided
by women respondents, the near equality in assault rates cannot be attributed to
a gender bias in reporting." (end quote)

*Dr. Straus's statistics do not reflect the latest study done by the Family
Research Laboratory.

Claims of
husband-beating gain prominence
by Alice Lovejoy - Brown University October 1997

October 1 marks the beginning of Domestic Abuse Awareness Month. Though most
people believe this issue to be one-sided, there are forces at work attempting
to modify common perceptions of domestic abuse. Armed with scientific data and
polls, a select group of private individuals, as well as publicly funded
researchers, purport that men are the victims of physical domestic abuse at
rates equal to or even greater than women. For every Wilfredo Cordero, the
Boston Red Sox player recently accused of assaulting his wife, these factions
claim there is a woman somewhere slapping her husband.

Sam and Bunny Sewell

Two main proponents of this uncharted attitude towards domestic abuse are Sam
and Bunny Sewell. The couple, from Naples, Florida, runs the "Best Self
Clinic," a group which provides counseling to couples. In the course of
their work, the Sewells found an unusually large number of cases in which
domestic violence was initiated by women. The couple, in the clinic's web page,
explores the distinction between "LOVE" ("non-possessive and
admiring") and "love" (a kind of attachment which denotes a
"lack of emotional self-sufficiency"). In relation to their concept of
"LOVE" as a solution to domestic problems, and in support of the idea
that violence in relationships must stem from a lack of "LOVE," the
Sewells have attempted to publicize the supposedly forgotten half of domestic
abuse, that directed by women against men.

Sam and Bunny, in a mass e-mailing to various news organizations, quote Change
in Spouse Abuse Rates from 1975 to 1992: A Comparison of Three National Surveys,
a study by Murray A. Straus and Glenda Kaufman Kantor of the University of New
Hampshire's Family Research Laboratory. The study found that, per 1,000 couples,
92 reported minor assaults such as pushing, grabbing and slapping, by the
husband. Surprisingly, though, the study reported a rate of 94 minor assaults by
the wife. 19 couples reported severe assaults such as kicking, biting, punching,
or using a gun or knife, by the husband. Yet 44 couples reported severe assault
by the wife, meaning that women are perpetrators of the crime at more than twice
the rate of their male counterparts.

"The Men's Issues Page" quotes a 1989 study in the Journal of
Consulting and Clinical Psychology, "Prevalence and Stability of Physical
Aggression Between Spouses" that found that women were, overall, more often
the aggressor in relationships than men. In unmarried couples, 31.2% of men and
44.4% of women had engaged in aggressive behavior. After eighteen months of
marriage, these statistics changed to 26.8% of men and 35.9% of women. After
twenty months of marriage, the numbers decreased to 24.6% and 32.2%, but
maintained the notable discrepancy. Further, this study found that "the
lower rates of overall aggression for men were not offset by higher rates of
more severe type of aggression." The same page uses a third study, The
Marriage License as Hitting License: A Comparison of Assaults in Dating,
Cohabiting and Married Couples which states similar findings showing that women
are more often the aggressor in a marriage.

Lash or backlash

In contrast to the vocal advocacy for battered women, claims that men are often
the victims of domestic abuse are likely to be dismissed as a mere backlash
against today's "politically-correct" sensibilities. Yet the data
about husband-beating is, to a large degree, valid. Murray Straus verified the
statistics from his report printed by "Sam and Bunny" and Richard
Gelles of the University of Rhode Island and author of Intimate Violence and
other studies, also validated the statistics used by matching it to previous
research.

In fact, Gelles' most recent research supported his earlier data in finding
that, in a quarter of domestic relationships, violence is exclusively male
against female. In a second quarter of these relationships, violence is
exclusively female against male. In the remaining half, violence is
bi-directional, with an equal likelihood of initiation from either men or women.
Yet anecdotal evidence on the part of women's groups and police blotters
suggests that the numerous studies detailing female violence are wrong or
exaggerated. Domestic violence advocacy groups claim that most violence by women
against men can be explained by examining the context of the violence; that it
is, to a large degree, in reaction to violence or threats that women use
violence against their spouse or partner. Deb de Bare, of the Rhode Island
Coalition Against Domestic Violence, stated "from our perspective, research
is often misleading. This is an example of exactly that. Research might
interpret the number of times someone was hit, but may not get the context.
Women might react and slap, and the research would document that as abuse. The
reality that we see is that well over ninety percent of cases of domestic
violence involve women as victims. We see domestic abuse as the whole pattern of
behavior in an abusive relationship."

Gelles would argue, however, that women's violence cannot be attributed to only
self-defense in such a large percentage of cases. Domestic violence, like any
form of abuse, is often a learned behavior. Victims of child abuse are more
likely to abuse both their own children and their spouse or partner. Violence,
to victims of abuse, is a way of expressing anger, which becomes a normalized
means to interact with one's partner. This is not to undermine the number of
cases in which violence is a direct reaction to threats or aggression; these
cases address an issue critical in the problem of violent relationships in
general.

Looking in the mirror

The difficulty in assigning blame for domestic violence is evident in Gelles '
study of unmarried college-age heterosexual couples. In these
relationships, violence is perfectly symmetrical between men and women. Gelles
termed these "modern aggressive relationships": anger is translated as
verbal or physical abuse. Though these relationships are just as violent as
"traditional" cases of domestic violence, they receive little
attention; abuse has become an accepted part of relationships between men and
women of this age group. The violence of this particular portion of abuse came
to the fore recently when last month a woman at the University of Michigan was
killed by her own boyfriend, stabbed repeatedly by a kitchen knife. Claiming
that "nobody wants to present the balanced view," Gelles is dismayed
that statistical 'facts' are ceaselessly debated over while the victims of abuse
gain little. Rhode Island, for instance, has standards for treating victims of
domestic abuse which dictate a certain number of weeks for treatment, as well as
a standardized and specific treatment content. In Gelles' opinion, these
standards are "guaranteed to be ineffective" because they do not
examine specific cases or situations of abuse. Thus, individuals with violent
childhood experiences, though "treated", return to relationships only
to maintain a previous pattern of abuse.

Proponents of the husband-beating statistics see identity politics as an
impediment to the eradication of violence in the home. Sam Sewell asserted that
"a solution to [the domestic violence] problem requires that gender
politics be excluded." Gelles agreed, arguing that the only remedy to
domestic abuse will come when advocates use "informed scientific
judgment" to determine treatment standards, and when the focus of the
domestic violence debate shifts from a search for the "real" victims
to a search for a solution.

Not long ago members of Virginia?s General Assembly considered a bill meant to
keep husbands from abusing their wives: putting a warning label at the top of
marriage licenses! It didn't?t get far. (Possibly calmer heads prevailed and
pointed out that it?s non marital relationships that are a major risk factor for
abuse.)

Still, this attempt highlights the prevailing notion in domestic violence
circles that "it's always his fault." That, in fact, is the title of
the cover article in the summer issue of "The Women's Quarterly, "
published by the Independent Women's Forum, an increasingly high-profile group
that's kind of an antidote to the National Organization for Women.

Author Sally L. Satel, psychiatrist and Yale medical school lecturer, shows how
accepted Gloria Steinem?s assertion that "the patriarchy requires violence
in order to maintain itself" has become. I.e., abusive men aren't?t
criminals, or drunks, or particularly troubled people some of whom may be
redeemed. They are just men.

The Chicago Metropolitan Battered Women's Network explains: "Battery is a
fulfillment of cultural expectation, not a defiant or sick behavior." This
view pervades the activist groups dealing with this issue, and the bureaucracies
that fund them with federal dollars.

Today a dozen states basically preclude treatment other than feminist therapy of
domestic batterers, Satel notes, and more are following. Forget joint counseling
when appropriate and desired-involving the batterer's mate in treatment amounts
to "blaming the victim ."

That despite the fact that many abuse experts unhindered by feminist blinders
recognize abuse is often part of a "dance of mutual destructiveness"
as psychologist Judith Shervin writes. And that women initiate violence in
cohabiting relationships as often as men (often using weapons to make up for
physical differences) according to leading abuse researchers-widely respected
across philosophical lines - Richard Gelles and Murray Straus.

No matter. "Don," a college administrator arrested for once slapping
his wife (they are still together) was required to attend a typical
"abuse" program. Every week "the message was clear," Don
told Satel. "Whatever she does to you is your fault, whatever you do to her
is your fault. It would have been a lot more helpful if they taught us to
recognize when we felt ourselves being driven into a position where we lash out.
The message should have been "recognize it, deal with it, and quit
hitting." All Don got was guilt about his maleness.

Hand in hand with this agenda are feminist backed "must arrest" and
similar legal policies which exist in hundreds of jurisdictions. These require
police to arrest one partner-almost always the man-when called to a domestic
dispute. Even when things have completely cooled down, there was no hitting, and
the woman doesn't?t want the man arrested.

Common "no-drop" polices do not allow a woman to drop abuse charges
once they're filed, even if her motive was anger, not fear. In California, it is
mandatory for judges to issue a restraining order separating the parties in all
domestic violence cases.

Such practices treat women like children, and ensure that if couples stay
together-and most in fact do-nothing really changes, Satel writes, though the
woman might mistakenly. and dangerously be led to believe it has. While there is
virtually no convincing data that this feminist approach to male violence is
effective, Satel notes, several respected studies suggest that these typical
legal practices can escalate spousal violence in some men by further enraging
them.

The goal of these feminist treatments and legal responses Satel says, is to
separate women from their abusive partner -no matter what the circumstances, and
no matter how fervently the women wish otherwise.

These "one size fits all" policies might make a bit more sense if
"abuse" always meant serious, systematic violence But the feminist
politicization of the term "abuse" renders it virtually meaningless.A
typical check-list, this from the Westchester Coalition of Family Violence
agencies, tells women that if their partner behaves in "an overprotective
manner," "turns minor incidents into major arguments"

or "insults you," then "you might be abused."

Sometimes, of course, no redemption is possible and leaving, or ensuring the
violent spouse is locked up (preferably for good), is the only answer. And Satel
rightly notes that the feminist agenda in this area has forced law enforcement
to take domestic abuse seriously.

But once again, the radical feminist agenda of "man bad woman good"
has permeated the culture on an a fundamentally important issue, and once again
it has done a terrible disservice to the constituency feminists are supposed to
help-women.

Betsy Hart, a former White House spokesman, is a weekly commentator on MS-NBC
television news.

Gelles, R.J. The violent home: A study of physical aggression between husbands
and wives

In 1974, a study was done which compared male and female domestic violence. In
that study, it was found that 47% of husbands had used physical violence on
their wives, and 33% of wives had used violence on their husbands (Gelles 1974).
Half of the respondents in this study were selected from either cases of
domestic violence reported to the police, or those identified by the social
service agency. Very few men report being assaulted by their wives. This
accounts for the lowered statistic for violent females, however it would be
foolish to ignore 33% of the problem even if this was the only study available.
Later studies are more accurate.

Chesanow, Neil, Violence at HomeNew Woman, February 1992, pg. 96-98.

[note: this is a very interesting article, particularly so since it appeared in
a women's magazine and argues that women are equally violent towards men in
intimate relationships. One of the bases for Chesanow's arguments is that
domestic violence among lesbian intimates is as common as domestic violence
among heterosexual intimates-based on crime statistics.]

In 1974, a study was released showing that the number of murders of women by men
(17.5% of total homicides) was about the same as the number of murders of men by
women (16.4% of total homicides). This study (Curtis 1974), however, showed that
men were three times as likely to assault women as vice-versa. These statistics
came from police records.

Wolfgang, M. Patterns in Criminal Homicide Wiley, New York, 1958

Mercy, J.A. & Saltzman, L.E. "Fatal violence among spouses in the
United States, 1976-85" American Journal of Public Health 79(5): 595-9 May
1989

Curtis's murder statistic (above study) was no big news,. In 1958, an
investigation of spousal homicide between 1948 and 1952 found that 7.8% of
murder victims were husbands murdered by wives, and 8% were wives murdered by
husbands (Wolfgang 1958). More recently, in a study of spousal homicide in the
period from 1976 to 1985, it was found that there was an overall ratio of
1.3:1.0 of murdered wives to murdered husbands, and that "Black husbands
were at greater risk of spouse homicide victimization than Black wives or White
spouses of either sex." (Mercy & Saltzman 1989)

In 1977, Suzanne Steinmetz released results from several studies showing that
the percentage of wives who have used physical violence is higher than the
percentage of husbands, and that the wives' average violence score tended to be
higher, although men were somewhat more likely to cause greater injury. She also
found that women were as likely as men to initiate physical violence, and that
they had similar motives for their violent acts (Steinmetz 1977-78).

In 1979, a telephone survey was conducted in which subjects were asked about
their experiences of domestic violence (Nisonoff & Bitman 1979). 15.5% of
the men and 11.3% of the women reported having hit their spouse; 18.6% of the
men and 12.7% of the women reported having been hit by their spouse.

In 1980, a team of researchers, including Steinmetz, attempted to address so me
concerns about the earlier surveys (Straus, Gelles & Steinmetz, 1980). They
created a nationally representative study of family violence and found that the
total violence scores seemed to be about even between husbands and wives, and
that wives tended to be more abusive in almost all categories except pushing and
shoving.

Straus, M.A. & Gelles, R.J. "Societal change and change in family
violence from 1975 to 1985 as revealed by two national surveys" Journal of
Marriage and the Family 48, po. 465-479, 1986

Straus & Gelles did a follow up survey in 1985, comparing their data to a
1975 survey (Straus & Gelles 1986). They found that in that decade, domestic
violence against women dropped from 12.1% of women to 11.3% while domestic
violence against men rose from 11.6% to 12.1%. The rate of severely violent
incidents dropped for both groups: From 3.8% to 3.0% of women victimized and
from 4.6% to 4.4% for men.

In 1986, a report appeared in Social Work, the journal of the National
Association of Social Workers (Nov./Dec. 1986) on violence in adolescent dating
relationships, in which it was found that girls were violent more frequently
than boys.

Another report on premarital violence (O'Leary, et al) found that 34% of the
males and 40% of the females reported engaging in some form of physical
aggression against their mates in a year. 17% of women and 7% of men reported
engaging in severe physical aggression. 35% of the men and 30% of the women
reported having been abused.

The idea of women being violent is a hard thing for many people to believe. It
goes against the stereotype of the passive and helpless female. This, in spite
of the fact that women are known to be more likely than men to commit child
abuse and child murder (Daly & Wilson 1988 report 54% of parent-child
murders where the child is under 17 were committed by the mother in Canada
between 1974 and 1983, for instance. The Statistical Abstract of the United
States 1987 reports that of reported child maltreatment cases between 1980 and
1984 between 57.0% and 61.4% of these were perpetrated by the mother. Nagi 1977
found 53.1% of perpetrators were female, 21% male and 22.6% both.

addressed earlier methodological problems, shows spousal abuse to be almost
gender-neutral in almost all categories of violence.

Straus, Murray" & Gelles, R.J. "Societal change and change in
family violence from 1975 to 1985 as revealed by two national surveys"
Journal of Marriage and the Family 48, po. 465-479, 1986 shows that domestic
violence by women is increasing and violence by men is decreasing. A more recent
study, reported at a conference by Straus, shows the trend is continuing

Jurik & Gregware 1989 and Mann 1990.

You will find that much fewer than half the female murderers have history of
being beaten. Most women who murder their husbands are impulsive, violent, and
have criminal records. Jurik (1989) and Jurik and Gregware's (1989)
investigation of 24 cases in which women killed husbands or lovers found that
the victim initiated use of physical forces in (40%) of the cases. Jurik and
Gregware's Table 2 shows that only 5 out of the 24 homicides (21%) were in
response to "prior abuse" or "threat of abuse/death." Mann's
(1990) study of the circumstances surrounding partner homicides by wives shows
that many women who murder their spouses are impulsive, violent, and have
criminal records. Jurik (1989) and Jurik and Gregware (1989) also report that
60% of the women they studied had previous arrests.

Jurik, N. C. (1989 November).Women who kill and the reasonable man: The legal
issues surrounding female-perpetrated homicide. Paper presented at the 41Annual
Meeting of the American Society of Criminology, Reno, NV.

Jurik & Gregware (1989) "A method for murder: An interactionist
analysis of homicides by women. Tempe: Arizona State University, School of
Justice Studies.

Community couples (N = 272) were assessed in a longitudinal study of early
marriage. More women than men reported physically aggressing against their
partners at premarriage (44% vs. 31%) and 18 months (36% vs. 27%). At 30 months,
men and women did not report significantly different rates of aggression (32%
vs. 25%). However, using either the self-report or the partner's report, the
prevalence of aggression was higher for women than men at each assessment
period. Modal forms of physical aggression for both men and women were pushing,
shoving, and slapping. Conditional probability analyses indicated that the
likelihood of physically aggressing at 30 months given that one had engaged in
such aggression before marriage and at 18 months after marriage was .72 for
women and .59 for men. Furthermore, 25-30% of the recipients of physical
aggression at all three assessment periods were seriously maritally discordant
at 30 months.

Spousal Abuse Rates - Stats from UCR and Straus, Gelles \

The data from the US National Crime Survey (NCS) states that 84% of the victims
of "intimate" violence were female. ("Highlights from 20 years of
Surveying Crime Victims", NCJ-144525.) It also puts the occurrence of this
violent crime (from "intimates only") at 5.4 female victims per 1000
women per year - this is all crimes, some of which did <i>not</i>
involve injury.

For comparison, the rate for "Accidental injury, all circumstances" is
given as 220 per 1000 adults per year - a figure 40 times higher.

If one accepts data such as that from the NCS, one must (at least if one is
consistent and intellectually honest) admit that such violence is rare. The
picture changes, though, when different techniques of investigation
(methodologies) are used, such as those by "Straus, Murray" and
Gelles. This data shows that domestic violence is MUCH more common. In fact,
some degree of violence (NOT injury, however) occurs at a rate of 113 incidents
per 1000 couples per year (husband. on wife) and 121 incidents per 1000 couples
per year (wife on husband)! This is 20x the rate that the NCS reports.

Family Homicides - rates by gender - DoJ, 94

In July 1994 the Bureau of Justice Statistics of the U.S. Department of Justice
released a Special Report detailing the results of a survey of family homicides
in 33 urban U.S. counties. The report covered ONLY convictions, which should
respond to any contention that female-on-male family violence is almost always
reactive. The report said:

"A third of family murders involved a female as the killer. In sibling
murders, females were 15 percent of killers, and in murders of parents, 18
percent. But in spouse murders, women represented 41 percent of killers. In
murders of their offspring, women predominated, accounting for 55 percent of
killers."

"Among black marital partners, wives were just about as likely to kill
their husbands as husbands were to kill their wives: 47 percent of the victims
of a spouse were husbands and 53 percent were wives."

U.S. Department of Justice

Conflict Tactics Scales

To give a little background on how the rates of violence were determined, by
"Straus, & Gelles", We include the following question from the
published survey for the CTS methodology:

Question 35:

No matter how well a couple gets along, there are times when they disagree, get
annoyed with the other person, or just have spats or fights because they 're in
a bad mood or tired or for some other reason. They also use many different ways
of trying to settle their differences. I'm going to read some things that you
and your spouse might do when you have an argument. I would like you to tell me
how many times in the last 12 months you:

a. Discussed the issue calmly
b. Got information to back up your side of things
c. Brought in or tried to bring in someone to help settle things
d. Insulted or swore at the other one
e. Sulked and/or refused to talk about it
f. Stormed out of the room or house (or yard)
g. Cried
h. Did or said something to spite the other one
i. Threatened to hit or throw something at the other one
j. Threw or smashed or hit or kicked something
k. Threw something at the other one
l. Pushed, grabbed, or shoved the other one
m. Slapped the other one
n. Kicked, but, or hit with a fist
o. Hit or tried to hit with something
p. Beat up the other one
q. Threatened with a knife or gun
r. Used a knife or gun

To summarize, Straus & Gelles, using the CTS methodology described above
found that rates for total (including less severe violence, such as pushing and
shoving) between husbands and wives are quite close) for husbands and wives,
with one survey showing husbands as more violent and the other with wives as
more violent .

Other data, however indicates that the gender of the striker of the first blow
is fairly uniform. Jan. E States and Murray A Straus, "Gender Differences
in Reporting Marital Violence and It?s Medical and Psychological
Consequences", ch 9 in Straus & Gelles Physical Violence in American
Families quote the following: Men claimed they struck the first blow in 44% of
the cases, their female partners in 44% of the cases, and "couldn't?t
remember" in 12% of the cases. The women claimed men hit them first in 43%
of the cases, that they struck the first blow in 53% of the cases, and
"couldn't?t remember" in 5% of the cases. However, data for injury
rates based on these studies shows women seeking treatment for a doctor much
more often than men did. In a study of 8145 families 7.3% of 137 women severely
assaulted (i.e. 10 out of 137) and 1% of 95 men severely assaulted (i.e 1 out of
95) men needed a doctor.

(all figures are rates per 1000 couples per year, and the CTS figures are based
on two national surveys of a representative population sample)

Recent Trends in Spousal Violence - Dept of Justice

The U.S. Department of Justice released a study on domestic violence and spousal
homicides on July 11, 1994. In this study it is reported that women kill men at
approximately the same rate as men kill women in "spousal" homicides.
(A "spousal" homicide is a husband or wife killing the other or a
homicide perpetrated by a common-law marriage partner on the other partner.) In
addition this study also reported that children were killed by mothers in 55% of
all parental homicides.

The 13th World Congress of Sociology, on July 19, 1994 it was reported that for
the U.S. for 1992:For the average of reports by males and females: Husband on
wife severe assault occurred at a rate of 2.0%, whereas wife on husband severe
assault occurred at a rate of 4.6%. and Husband on wife minor assault occurred
at a rate of 9.9%, whereas wife on husband assault occurred at a rate of 9.5%

A rate of 2.0% means that during 1992 there were 20 instances of severe husband
on wife assault for every 1000 couples.

Also reported at the conference was the fact that although male on female
violence has been slowly decreasing over the last decade, female on male
violence is now increasing sharply.

Various Spousal Violence Stats

In 1975 and again in 1985, Murray A. Straus and Richard J. Gelles and others
conducted one of the largest and most respected studies in family violence ever
done. What they found, confounded conventional wisdom on the subject: Not only
are men just as likely to be the victims of domestic violence as women, the
study showed that between 1975 and 1985, the overall rate of domestic violence
by men against women decreased, while women's violence against men increased.
Responding to accusations of gender bias, Straus re-computed the assault rates
based solely on the responses of the women in the 1985 study and confirmed that
even according to women, men are the ones more likely to be assaulted by their
partner.

There is no question that while men on average are bigger and stronger than
women, they can do more damage in a fistfight. However according to Professors
R.L. McNeely and Cormae Richey Mann, "the average man's size and strength
are neutralized by guns and knives, boiling water, bricks, fireplace pokers and
baseball bats."

A 1985 study of Texas University students, Breen found that 18% of men and 14%
of women reported a violent act by a romantic partner. In the same study, 28% of
married men reported that their wives had slapped, punched or kicked them.
(Shupe, Stacey & Hazlewood. "Violent Men, Violent Couples (1986)
Chapter 3.

In another study, 15.5% of men and 11.3% of women reported having hit a spouse
while 18.6% of men and 12% of women reported been struck by a spouse. Nisnoff
& Bitman, Victimology 4, (1979), pp. 131-140.